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WASHINGTON - A typical day last week in the life of the most active and activist first lady went like this: A millennium event on preserving historic documents at the National Archives. A White House meeting on the effect of Medicare cuts on teaching hospitals. A drop-by at Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin's farewell party. An outing with daughter Chelsea and husband Bill to the quarterfinals of the Women's World Cup. And many, many phone calls. Now, into what aides say is this superwoman schedule, Hillary Rodham Clinton is about to wedge one more thing - a campaign for an ...

Diplomats in talks on bombing indemnitySTORY: DIPLOMATS from the United States and China are negotiating over possible compensation for the US-led Nato bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade two months ago, according to diplomatic sources.A deal on the issue would pave the way for the possible resumption of Sino-US talks on China's accession to the World Trade Organisation, which were unilaterally suspended by Beijing after three journalists were killed and 20 other Chinese diplomatic staff wounded when US bombers attacked the embassy in Belgrade with five missiles at midnight on 7 May.Clinching a deal over compensation from the ...

(AP) — The number of deaths in the United States rises at the start of every month and drops at the end, and addicts spending their first-of-the-month government checks on drugs and drink probably account for most of the difference, researchers say. University of California-San Diego sociologist David P. Phillips and colleagues reached that conclusion after analyzing nearly 32 million electronic death certificates over 15 years. The study was published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. The researchers suggested that addicts get aid that can be used only for food, clothes and shelter. "You wouldn't do that for the ...

Mavs draftee Smith storms out of workout Teen refuses coach's orders, apologizes later 07/07/99 By Marc Stein / The Dallas Morning News It took Mavericks draftee Leon Smith precisely one practice to illustrate the potential pitfalls involved when high school stars leap straight to the pros. At the end of his first formal NBA workout Tuesday afternoon, Smith shocked coaches, teammates and onlookers at the Mavericks' Baylor-Landry Center practice facility by refusing to heed instructions from assistant coach Donnie Nelson and storming off the floor. Smith, the 18-year-old selected in the first round of last week's NBA draft, stunningly challenged ...

WASHINGTON -- Police can easily "eavesdrop" on pagers if a bill approved by the US Senate becomes law. The bill says law enforcement officials can monitor all messages sent to targeted pagers without having to convince a judge that the information can be found only in that way. "Congress is trying to do an end run around the Constitution and gut the privacy of millions of pager owners," said David Banisar, author of The Electronic Privacy Papers. The measure is part of a sprawling juvenile crime bill, which passed the Senate overwhelmingly after the Littleton, Colorado shootings. It isn't ...

NATO claims its aircraft destroyed 120 Serb armored vehicles and tons of other military hardware during its recent Balkans bashing. But as reported in this space last week, down in the Kosovo mud our grunts say, "It ain't so." Our warriors say it sure looks like NATO, after blowing a cool $4 billion on bombs and missiles, didn't do the demo job as hyped. Pound for pound of enemy gear destroyed, this is America's costliest war. So how did the Serbs pull the wool over NATO's electronic eyes and foil the most high-tech military force in history? Simple. They ...

08:40 Hungarian Foreign Ministry stated that representatives of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians and the Democratic Party of Vojvodina Hungarians reached an agreement on a 3-step autonomy, which, beside the autonomy of Vojvodina, includes demands for a territorial and personal autonomy of Hungarians in Vojvodina. Beside officials of Hunagrian Foreign Ministry and the Bureau for Hungarians in Diaspora, the meeting was attended asos by representatives of SVM and DPVM.

      MSNBC's Seigenthaler: "While we are waiting for the first lady, I thought we might tell our viewers a little story that appeared in the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky and it is about the president. And of course, the president has been visiting poverty stricken areas around the country in the last couple of days. And he will be in South Dakota a little later on today. ... But apparently the president has a pen pal. A 14 year old girl from Richmond, Kentucky and he has written this girl 35 times. The girls name is Megan. She met ...

Reading an article in this April's Chronicles magazine, "Cajuns Uncaged," made my day. Last October, by nearly a 60 percent majority, Louisianians approved Amendment 1 to their state constitution. Amendment 1 declares: "The people of this state have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free and sovereign state; and do, and forever hereafter shall, exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction, and right pertaining thereto, which is not, or may not hereafter be, by them expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled." Louisiana's amendment would be entirely unnecessary if the White House, Congress and the ...

Sleaze follows the Clintons as surely as summer follows spring, and the first real indication of its presence in the nascent Hillary Clinton campaign has surfaced in the improper conduct of White House Communications Director Ann Lewis. Lewis will be writing a "substantial amount" of Hillary Clinton's campaign Web site - even as she continues to be paid as an employee of the federal government. The dual role Lewis apparently intends to play as both West Wing staffer and Hillary campaign worker raises important legal questions about the use of the White House as a campaign base for the ...

Hillary might win. It pains me to say it, but it's true. As the First Lady sets forth today, a semi-official candidate, she is stronger than her foes believe, and less likely to fold under the weight of her own baggage. No matter what the polls say, she is the favorite in this race. Here's why that's true. First, the "carpetbagger" assault is going to go nowhere. Republicans of every stripe have gone up and down in the land cock-a-doodle-doing about the fact Hillary isn't from around here. She is a carpetbagger and an opportunist, they say, running here simply ...

The following information may be just a little too shocking to be seeing the light of day in a family newspaper, and some readers may be genuinely offended that I've dared to repeat it. However, the public does have a right to know, and I believe that it is my duty as a journalist to tell you, so here goes: George W. Bush did not see combat during the Vietnam War. Alas and alack, it's sad but true: The Republican governor of Texas, the undisputed front-runner in the presidential sweeps before this frightful skeleton was unearthed, did not go to ...

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Certain government agencies think airlines should hire extremely nearsighted pilots. The Justice Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also thought a supermarket chain should hire a partially blind truck driver. Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected those ``rights'' and restricted the definition of disability to restore legitimacy to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Two pilots with 20/200 vision sued because United Airlines refused to hire them. The court rejected their claim. A Kansas truck driver who failed a Department of Transportation vision test was fired and also sued. The court rejected his claim. The government is currently trying to ...

Hillary Clinton Pledges to be Strong Advocate for New Yorkers By Marc Humbert, Associated Press WEST DAVENPORT, N.Y. (AP) — Launching her historic campaign for the Senate, Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged today to be a "strong and effective advocate on behalf of the people of New York.'' She was immediately asked to address criticism that she is a "carpetbagger'' for choosing to seek election from a state where she has never lived or worked. "What I am for is maybe as important, if not more important than where I am from,'' Mrs. Clinton said. Mrs. Clinton was introduced by the ...

Dear Forum: Over-loaded and no real solutions made on #1. Things have happened since July 1 and the original post of WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BUSH & CLINTON? Or do the changes still make everything the same? A few people observed that Bush is not running against Clinton --but Al Gore. I believe the Clinton-Gore names are interchangeable and remain the same. Many posts reflected on the character of The Bush Family, but no one observed the lineage back to his granddaddy or his Uncle Prescott. It was not a discussion between the Republicans and the Democrats. Because there ...

THE HEADLINE ON THE FRONT PAGE of the San Francisco Chronicle told the whole ugly story: "Kosovo Albanians Pillage Serb Town." The subtitle said: "Mentally Ill Woman Allegedly Raped, Killed." Another aspect of our Balkan involvement was told by a headline on the front page of the New York Times: "Damage to Serb Military Less Than Expected." Despite the political spin coming out of Washington, this Balkan war is not about the good guys versus the bad guys, and our intervention has done less damage to Milosevic's military forces than to a lot of innocent people, including Kosovar refugees, the ...

GAGETOWN, N.B. (CP) -- Some of the Kosovars who have taken refuge in Canada are heading home today, despite warnings from Canadian officials that life in their homeland is still uncertain and difficult. Twenty Kosovar refugees who have been living at a cadet camp on sprawling Canadian Forces Base Gagetown near Fredericton said tearful goodbyes to friends and relatives this morning as they prepared to make the long trek back to their war-torn province in the former Yugoslavia. Some of the returning refugees took the time to speak to reporters through interpreters because they wanted to thank Canadians for ...

ONCE THERE WAS a television show called "To Tell the Truth.'' Three people identified themselves by the same name, and contestants asked questions to determine which one was telling the truth. We might play that game with President Clinton. He claims that he has found another $1 trillion, after discovering a previous trillion dollars, following a miscalculation of a much lower surplus that has yet to materialize and is only a projection based on a supposition that current growth will continue for 15 years. How do we know this president isn't lying to us the way he has about everything ...

Largest equity markets could face 5 day Y2K related telecoms & utility outages. A recent analysis of Y2K preparation and infrastructure usage, indicates the world’s 19 largest equity markets, as measured by market capitalisation, are located in countries which could face telecoms & utilities delays of up to 5 days. July 6, 1999 -- A recent study by International Monitoring, a specialist consultancy in London, indicates that the average Y2K country profile for the countries home to the 19 largest equity markets, are at risk of 5 days outage in the key infrastructure areas of Telecoms and Utilities. The analysis ...